Looking after your intimate health is essential at every stage of a woman’s life, whether after childbirth, during pregnancy or at the time of menopause. Faced with everyday discomforts such as urinary incontinence, starting a programme of pelvic floor training at home helps you regain long-lasting comfort. Today, we’ll look at two approaches to strengthening the pelvic floor: on one side, the traditional method based on concentration and visualisation; on the other, the active technology of a connected Emy Trainer pelvic floor trainer.
- The benefits of pelvic floor training: Targeted muscle strengthening helps restore urinary continence and actively supports every organ in the pelvis.
- Visualisation exercises: This cognitive method relies on concentration to locate and feel the internal muscles without using any external equipment.
- The Emy Trainer pelvic floor trainer: This medical device for home use uses the principle of biofeedback to measure the intensity of your contraction via a mobile app.
What are the benefits of pelvic floor training?
Actively training your pelvic floor offers many concrete benefits for a woman’s overall health in everyday life:
- Reducing the symptoms of urinary incontinence.
- Limiting the risk of prolapse (organ descent).
- Improving the quality of intimate life by toning the tissues for better sensations.
How can mental imagery be used in rehabilitation?
Pelvic floor visualisation exercises are based on mental concentration and body awareness. They involve “imagining” the contraction of the pelvic floor, visualising a closing movement or an internal lift, without necessarily generating a measurable physical contraction.
This method is often used in sophrology, therapeutic yoga or gentle postnatal support. But while these practices can strengthen the mind-body connection, they offer neither visual feedback, nor a structured protocol, nor clinical validation.
In parallel, the Emy Trainer pelvic floor trainer combines technology and effectiveness with fun, progressive and measurable exercises.
Which exercises can help strengthen the pelvic floor with mental imagery?
To train at home, make yourself comfortable. Take a moment to breathe in calmly, then do each exercise as you breathe out through your mouth to strengthen the deep muscles safely without engaging the abdominal muscles or pushing out the belly.
The lift image
An ideal method for learning progressive control of the pelvic floor muscles.
- Imagine your pelvic floor is a lift that goes up floor by floor towards the bottom of the pelvis.
- Tighten a little more at each level, hold, then slowly come back down, floor by floor, before relaxing completely at the first level.
The secret cave image
Visualise your intimate opening as a cave.
- Breathe out through your mouth, contract your pelvic floor and imagine closing the cave door to protect the bladder.
- Breathe in through your nose, relax your pelvic floor and imagine opening the cave door.
Emy Trainer or mental visualisation: which method is best for the pelvic floor?
Which tool should you choose for real muscle strengthening? Here is our detailed comparison:
| Criteria | Emy Trainer (connected trainer) | Visualisation exercises |
|---|---|---|
| Clinical effectiveness | ✅ Medically validated | ❌ Not scientifically validated |
| Visible results | ✅ As early as 3 weeks for most users | 🔄 Highly variable, depending on concentration level |
| Real-time feedback | 📱 Yes, via an intuitive app | ❌ No external feedback |
| Progress tracking | 📈 Graphs, levels, history | ❌ No structured tracking |
| Motivation / engagement | 🎮 Fun exercises, reminders, clear progression | ⚠️ Requires strong personal motivation |
| Integrated medical protocol | 🩺 Yes, based on health recommendations | ❌ No formal protocol |
| Recommended frequency | ✅ 1 to 5 times / week | 💡 Daily recommended for measurable results |
| Time per session | ⏱️ 5 to 20 minutes | ⏱️ 5 to 15 minutes |
| Setup time | ⚡ Less than 1 minute | ✅ No equipment needed |
| Comfort of use | 💆♀️ Medical-grade silicone, ergonomic | ✅ 100% mental method |
| Level of effort required | 💡 Low to moderate (depending on the exercises) | 🧠 High (requires strong concentration) |
| Muscle fatigue | ✅ None | ❌ No real muscle engagement if done incorrectly |
| Learning curve | 📉 Intuitive and guided from the start | 🌐 Long and dependent on imagination |
| Risk of error | 🔒 Low thanks to app guidance | ⚠️ Frequent without supervision |
| Passive multitasking | ✅ Possible while sitting or lying down | ❌ Requires exclusive mental concentration |
| Exercise personalisation | 🎯 Yes, according to progression and goals | ❌ Not personalised |
| Hygiene / maintenance | ✅ Easy cleaning (medical silicone) | ✅ No maintenance required |
| Home use | ✅ Yes, simple and discreet | ✅ Yes, without equipment |
| Price | 💰 One-off purchase, no subscription | 🆓 Free |
| Guarantee / trial | 🛡️ 100-day money-back guarantee | ❌ Not applicable |
| Manufacturing / certification | 🇫🇷🇵🇹 France / Portugal, CE certified | ❌ Not applicable |
Emy Trainer pelvic floor trainer or visualisation exercises: effectiveness or imagination?
Visualisation exercises are useful for developing fine body awareness, especially after childbirth or alongside other gentle techniques.
They offer an inward, soothing approach, but do not always engage the pelvic floor muscles effectively if they are not accompanied by real contractions.
By contrast, the Emy Trainer pelvic floor trainer combines active engagement, motivation and precision. Thanks to its intuitive app, contraction games and visual feedback, it makes progress clear and measurable.
Today, it remains a benchmark for all women who want to strengthen their pelvic floor independently and with medically validated support.
What you need to remember
Pelvic floor rehabilitation and maintaining pelvic floor tone are fundamental elements of women’s health that should not be left to chance. In short, each method brings distinct value depending on your needs:
- See a healthcare professional: Don’t hesitate to see a healthcare professional so you can have a full initial assessment and learn how to contract the deep muscles correctly and safely.
-
Visualisation and its limits: Mental imagery is a teaching tool for developing fine body awareness and starting gently, but it remains insufficient for real muscle strengthening because it offers no external control or measurement of effort.
- Pelvic floor training with Emy Trainer: Using a connected trainer allows you to validate each contraction in real time through fun medical protocols. Based on a clinical trial, this pelvic floor trainer enables 98% of users to notice a clear improvement in their quality of life after 3 months of regular use at home.
FAQ: Pelvic floor training and visualisation
What are visualisation exercises for the pelvic floor?
They are mental imagery techniques that involve imagining an action (such as opening a door or riding a lift) in order to voluntarily contract the pelvic floor muscles, with no equipment at all.
Is visualisation alone enough to rebuild the pelvic floor?
It is excellent for becoming aware of your anatomy, but it is often not enough in cases of urinary leaks or prolapse. Without visual feedback, it is impossible to check whether the contraction is correct and strong enough.
What is the difference between visualisation and the Emy Trainer pelvic floor trainer?
Visualisation relies only on your feelings and imagination. By contrast, the connected Emy Trainer uses biofeedback: it measures the real strength of your contractions and shows them in real time on your smartphone screen.
Why use the Emy Trainer pelvic floor rehabilitation trainer rather than training on your own?
Nearly half of women do the wrong contractions when training on their own (pushing down instead of drawing up). The Emy Trainer pelvic floor trainer validates your movements to make sure your training is effective, safe and error-free.
Can mental imagery and the Emy Trainer pelvic floor trainer be used together?
Yes, it’s the ideal combo. Imagining that you are closing your pelvic floor while doing the fun exercises in the Emy app helps recreate the connection between the brain and the pelvic muscles more effectively, which speeds up rehabilitation.
How long does it take to see results with the Emy Trainer?
Thanks to the precision of biofeedback, an improvement in tone can be felt after just 3 weeks of use.
In addition, our clinical trial shows that 98% of users notice a clear improvement in their quality of life after 3 months of regular sessions at home.
Sources:
- Prospective evaluation of the connected biofeedback EMY Kegel trainer in the management of stress urinary incontinence, Jochum F et al., February 2022, Journal of Gynecology Obstetrics and Human Reproduction 51(2):102280. - link
- Pelvic Floor Muscle Rehabilitation Using Biofeedback, Diane Kaschak Newman, July 2014, Urologic Nursing 34(4):193-202. - link
